New York — One man fried his children's goldfish. Another broke into his estranged wife's home and microwaved her kitten. A wife who fled to a battered women's shelter received an audiotape from her husband; on it were the howls of her dog being tortured.
In all three cases, say the authorities familiar with them, the family members not the pets were the primary targets.
Motivated by grim cases like these, police, family-protection agencies and animal rights groups nationwide are increasingly interested in the link between cruelty to pets and domestic violence.
The Baltimore police department now includes animal-cruelty awareness in the guidelines it gives officers handling domestic violence cases. An investigator from the local Humane Society is part of a domestic violence task force formed by the Colorado Springs, Colo., police.
Because few battered women's shelters accommodate pets, scores of communities have established programs providing temporary homes for these animals.
More than half of battered women in three recent surveys reported their abuser injured or threatened their pets. Fear of the consequences for their animals if they leave often keep women from dumping their abusers, researchers say.
The new programs have provided common ground for animal welfare and domestic violence organizations that, as nonprofit groups, historically competed against each other for funding and community support.
"There's still an attitude out there of 'Aren't human victims more important than animal victims?"' said Claire Ponder of the Humane Society of the United States. "But more and more, domestic violence specialists are seeing the connection even if they aren't animal lovers, they see that some of the women they're working with are."
Ponder coordinates a Humane Society campaign called First Strike, launched in 1997 to raise awareness of the link between animal cruelty and domestic violence. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has started a similar program in New York City, called Family Vision.
Ponder, who formerly worked with a domestic violence agency in Maryland, said victims of abuse sometimes find that their pets are used as weapons against them.
"When their animals are killed or hurt, they feel victimized all over again," Ponder said. "They realize that their batterer, without even having to lay a hand on them, is sending a message: 'If I can do this to the pet, I can do it to you."'
Children can be deeply scarred by this kind of abuse, according to Susan Urban, who coordinates Family Vision for the ASPCA. She told of two sisters, 8 and 10, in an art therapy group who repeatedly depicted in their drawings and their conversations their father killing the girls' cat by throwing it against a wall.
In Baltimore, the coordinator of the police department's domestic violence programs, Col. Margaret Patten, leads a team with representatives from law enforcement, social services and animal control. The members are cross-trained to recognize and respond to various combinations of domestic violence and animal abuse.
Patten has also encouraged veterinarians to be on the lookout for animal abuse that might be linked to domestic violence.
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